AuthorTopic: Bill Harry.....straight shooter???? (Read 18729 times)

I did not receive a request for sending his password, but then I'm only a 'member' administrator, not a 'head' administrator like Dmitry and Alan. As they're not much around at the moment, Bill's request probably slipped through. However, I can give him a new password and send that to him by e-mail

Here is one of the items i tried to send the other day. It's a piece I wrote about the Jets, the first British band to go to Hamburg. I'd been in touch with Ricky Richards over the years and he promised to give me lots of photos, contracts and details of their appearance at the Kaiserkeller, and stories of him going ten pin bowling with Stuart etc. Unfortunately, he got run over and killed by a car two yeas ago before he could send me the items. The other day I got a phone call that Iain Hines was in prison. He's the brother of Jamie Hines, who used to be in 'Doctor Who'. I do have a series of articles he wrote for a girlie magazine in the Seventies about his adventures in Hamburg with the Beatles. Fascinating stuff!

THE JETS: The first British rock band to perform in Hamburg. Some of the members were present in the 2 1s coffee bar in London when Bruno Koschmider arrived looking for bands for the Kaiserkeller. Pianist Iain Hines said he had a group and used the name the Jets, which he had also called his previous bands. Initially, it took a few days to put the band together because they had difficulty finding a drummer. However Iain failed to show up at Liverpool Street Station when the group departed on 4 June 1960. They tried hard to find a lead guitarist, with musicians such as Keith Charles and Joe Moretti turning them down. Finally, after a meeting at Chas. McDevitt

Great story about the Jets. It's always the drummer who's a problem, eh? Very fun glimpse of those early, crazy days. Thanks for coming back.

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All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007<br />

oh i had 4got all about ricky valance....was that his real name or did he take that as a stage name????i think that is a drapery accessory...vince eager posts regularly at the whirlygig forum bill....i could try to get him over here to discuss this maybe......it is too bad that we can't get the gene vincent or eddie cochran rememberances of those days...i'll bet those were the golden times that catapulted most young liverpudlians hopes and dreams that some day they would be as big as chris barber and lonnie donnegan....being replaced by gerry and the pacers must have been awful...were gerry and his group mods?was that still an issue during the music boom there,mods and rockers??in england i mean...i know the germans were always hard core rockers...

Hal Carter, who died about two years ago, could have prevented Eddie's death. He was in charge of the tour at the time and told me that he was called away to look after some other artists, I think it was Marty Wilde. He said he would have never have allowed Eddie and Gene to get in a car to go to London that night, but would have ensured that they stayed and had their proper sleep in a hotel. After the accident, I believe there was another musician whose car had broken down and he was allowed to siphon petrol from the car after the accident. Also, thed policeman at the scene of the accident was Dave Dee. I'm sorry I really didn't get all the details from everyone concerned, it would have made a detailed accurate history for posterity. But now Hal is dead and I lost some of the other information. Unfortunately, I have had to junk three computers which broke down over the past five years and I now realise that a lot of information, probably a couple of million words, and hundreds of photographs, were lost.

damn the luck...the futher times marches foward the more information we are losing...so now do you see why i asked you to join in on discussions?ricky did a great version of tell laura i love her but i always thought the original was ray peterson wasn't it?he did corinna corinna...i always dug that song...here is what i found on ricky...Born David Spencer in 1940 in Ynysddu, in the Sirhowy Valley in South Wales, he was the eldest of seven children. Times were tough, and upon leaving school he tried various jobs before joining the RAF aged 17.

After being discharged, he decided to pursue a career in singing. He signed to EMI and recorded his cover of Ray Peterson's US hit Tell Laura I Love Her, which beat Elvis, Cliff and Roy Orbison to the number one spot.

It was a controversial release at the time, dealing with the death of a loved one. Today the song has been a hit in 14 countries, and has sold over seven million copies. He released several follow-ups, including Movin' Away, Jimmy's Girl and Six Boys, but none of them were significant hits.

Ricky carved out a career singing on the cabaret and nostalgia circuit. Then, following a bout of severe depression and a nervous breakdown he became a born-again Christian.

he lives in spain now and a recent post was made by a young lady...Sue Coley, Costa Blanca, SpainI spoke to Ricky Valance today (22/3/07). We talked about doing some shows here in North Costa Blanca. He is well,and has been living here for five years. He hopes to go over again to the UK soon to perform. Great guy!so maybe we will see his name on the marquee soon...wiki has a nice write up on him too....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Valance

and a gene link too...Postscript: Joe Meek heard the American original of this and recorded not only another version but also a Brit-clone of the answer song, “Tell Tommy I Miss Him”. Both flopped, but Meek wasn’t finished with death songs and within a year would have released the best example ever to top the British chart.

he recently released an album called tell laura i love her...in janurary2007 the playlist is as followssealed with a kisstraveling mantell laura i love herthingspoor little foolrunawayshaking all overonce upon a timei believelove hurts

Hey Bill, I met a guy named Larry Kiniff (sp?) a few days ago and he stated that he knew you. He definately has the largest Beatle collection i've ever seen. He also claimed that he was given the rights to 'Ask Me Why', but I cant find anything about that. Larrys a nice guy and i'd like to do an article on him soon, but I just wondered if you know him.

I'm off on a two week holiday. I don't go to Beatle week because I'm never invited. I did do it the last time I was invited which was nearly 15 years ago. Now I don't think I'd bother. There's a point about my books. My first encyclopedia they lost most of my photos and cut 40,000 words out. Then I was given less than a week to check half a million words. With the revised issue they also lost 20,000 words of copy and corrections I made weren't included in the finished book. These things do happen. It's frustrating to correct mistakes and then see the mistakes still appear in the finishede book! With my first book on John Lennon, the publishers charged me four thousand pounds for including publicity photos of people like Elton John and they sent all my originaly photos by mistake to some New York agency and I never got them back. These things happen with publishers.

Hi Bill - We [face=Times] [size=18] love [/size] [/face] you on this forum! And I bet all the Beatles fans in the world would love to meet you anywhere, anytime, even including that Beatles Fest thing. My offer is still open to you ... if you ever come to San Antonio, drop me a PM, and I'm good for at least 1 (pitcher!) of Margaritas!

With my first book on John Lennon, the publishers charged me four thousand pounds for including publicity photos of people like Elton John and they sent all my originaly photos by mistake to some New York agency and I never got them back. These things happen with publishers.

At the start of the Swinging Sixties, Liverpool was a remarkable place, about to take the world by storm. Mersey Beat was born. A global revolution, based on a thriving Liverpool scene would change rock music and fashion forever, dominate the music charts at home and overseas, and influence generations of musicians to come.

Bigger Than The Beatles, written by highly-respected Mersey Beat author Bill Harry, is a fascinating and entertaining insight into the cultural phenomenon that was Merseyside in the 1960s, featuring rare and excusive pictures from the archives.